Songoftheday 12/1/20 - I'm a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world, dress me up make it tight I'm your dolly...

 

 

"Barbie Girl" - Aqua

from the album Aquarium (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song of the day comes from the Danish pop group Aqua, who got started in the capital city of Copenhagen in the mid 1990s. After a brief stint as "Joyspeed", the rechristened quartet of singers Lene Nystrom and Rene Dif with guitarist Claus Noreen and synth player Soren Rasted signed with MCA/Universal Records, where they recorded their debut album Aquarium. The first single in their home country was the by-the-numbers Eurodance track "Roses Are Red", which went to #1 in Denmark in 1996. That was followed by a second chart-topper there with "My Oh My" (this song would later on become a top ten hit in the UK in 1998).  But the third release would be the one that gave the band their first and biggest worldwide success. "Barbie Girl", written by all the members and produced by Noreen and Rasted with Johnny Jam (Johnny Pedersen) and Delgado (Karsten Dahlgaard), was a comic take on the iconic doll produced by the Mattel Company since 1959. With Lene's chirpy vocals and Rene's gruff counterpoint, the record was pure fluff but instantly contagious. With a colorful music video and an eager public wanting something fun away from the G-funk and grunge, and they ate it up, even if radio wasn't too keen on it...

Upon release in America, the single sold like hotcakes from the gate, placing it in the American top ten in September of 1997. However, the record company pulled the single very quickly, with differing stories of either goosing albums sales or avoiding litigation from toymaker Mattel, which happened anyway. The remixes of the song helped it climb to #21 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, besides going to #2 in Denmark, the single went to #1 in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, New Zealand, and Switzerland. It also reached the top ten in Spain (#2), the Netherlands (#2), Austria (#2), Finland (#3), Canada (#4), and Hungary (#4). The Aquarium album also came in at #7 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America, going on to sell over three million copies.

As for the lawsuit, surprisingly enough Mattel lost, with the courts siding on the side of 1st Amendment rights and right to parody, so that was pretty big. And of course, in time the company ended up licensing the song for a commercial about the doll, of course changing the racy lyrical content.

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Here's the group performing the song for TV in 1997..

and this is Mattel's total cop-out to Aqua in 2009...

 

and lastly, live (!) in concert in 2016...

Up tomorrow: Canadian siren's first big hit is purposefully vague.